I will freely admit to approaching this album with skepticism. Astor Piazzolla’s
Argentinian tangos are rich, colorful works imaginatively scored for various
traditional ensembles of tango instruments, and the thought of hearing them
on a lone piano was not all pleasant. Surely we would miss the liveliness,
the temperament of the dance; surely we’d miss hearing the violin, the
bandoneón, the double-bass. A few months ago I reviewed a piano transcription
of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and said that all it did was make me
wish that I was listening to the original instead. Wouldn’t it be the
same with a piano version of the Four Seasons of Buenos Aires?

Happily, no! This is an excellent, totally enjoyable album of music that sounds
incredibly fun to play. The Argentinian pianist Aquiles Delle-Vigne is a veteran
of the tango, and has created arrangements that are idiomatic, convincing,
playful, and soulful too. This is a pianist’s love-letter to the tango,
and hard to resist.

Though this album is entitled Astor Piazzolla’s Best Tangos, that
label is a bit of a misnomer; certainly some of my favorites are absent (most
notably “Oblivion” and “Libertango”). But Delle-Vigne’s
selection of an hour of fine music offers a wide and diverse survey of the
Argentine composer’s output, comprising the Four Seasons of Buenos
Aires and eleven shorter works. And more may not necessarily have been
better: even by the end of this hour-long program, listening fatigue starts
to set in due to the unavoidable sameness of rhythm and mood.

Especially noteworthy is Delle-Vigne’s touch in the most tender moments
of this music. The beginning of “Winter” (from the Four Seasons),
and the “Milonga del Angel” are special delights, Delle-Vigne’s
playing poetic and melancholy. “Balada para un Loco”, too, is especially
convincing, as is the wonderful (and very rare) “Chau Paris”, an
exuberant little romp through cheerful French influences. He is not quite as
charming in the louder, faster sections, like the opening of the Four Seasons’ “Summer”,
but that is because, on the piano, the tango is by necessity less about dance
and passion and more about intimacy and mood. Music, as a fellow listener told
me, to put on during a romantic dinner.

The sound, close and somewhat boomy, would be all wrong in Chopin or Mozart,
but is acceptable for this music. It seems rather more a jazz recording than
a classical one, the piano’s bright tone better-suited to a nightclub
than a recital hall. Perhaps this is a factor of the recording’s age:
it was made in 1989 for the Belgian record label CNR and has been brought over
to Naxos for reissue. Audiophiles will recoil, but then, is the recorded sound
not at least appropriate to this genre?

As mentioned previously, listener fatigue may set in for those who aren’t
able to listen to a solo piano playing an hour of seductive tango music. But,
since this is currently an MP3 download album only, the cure is simple: listen
in separate sittings. Piazzolla’s spirit is well-served in these transcriptions
and performances, and, if the selection is not of his “Best Tangos,” that
just means there is much new here to discover.

As a part of the Naxos Digital imprint, this album is currently only available
for download at the website Classicsonline, where it sells for rather less
than the price of a physical compact disc. Naxos informs me that a standard
CD will be issued in autumn 2010.